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Our always-succinct Quiroga summed up the Shelby GT350 thusly: “If Porsche’s GT team built a Mustang, it would be the GT350.” There’s not nearly as much hyperbole in that statement as might first appear.

There’s surely some freedom in developing a performance car that need only sell in the thousands, instead of the tens of thousands. You needn’t worry about the poseurs. The lack of an available automatic transmission should keep many of them away. The blaring exhaust note and vibration from the 5.2-liter flat-plane-crank V-8 will frighten off the others. Also, let’s stop to consider that the company undertook a significant engine program for the sake of this one vehicle. You couldn’t drop this thing into an Explorer to amortize its development costs. It might have started as a Coyote 5.0-liter, but it is essentially nothing like the Five-Oh in character or specification.

And it is glorious. True, it doesn’t really come alive and pull in earnest until 4000 rpm. But even then, it’s barely halfway through the tachometer. Its 526 horsepower arrives at 7500 rpm, and by the time you get there, you’re also at peak titillation—your nerve endings buzzing in concert with the engine’s zing. It’s not a pretty-sounding thing. Instead, its blare is of a machine that seems to care only about the beauty of power. Its creators think burbling exhaust notes are, at best, cute.

Owing to its crankshaft design and lack of balance shafts, this is not the smoothest V-8. It is, in fact, one of the least smooth. Shoot through to the far side of the tach and the engine sends a mighty vibration through the pedals and the dash and your seat bottom. Perhaps this is why Quiroga described the GT350 as a “Sybian.” We wouldn’t know. But we do know that, in this case, the vibration is exhilarating, even if the instrument-panel pieces might not like it in the long run.

Ford Performance swapped out the GT’s six-speed Getrag manual transmission for this Tremec six-speed that is lighter and better shifting. It can be rushed into its gates with minimal friction and maximum mechanical feel, keeping the engine fully on the boil and making the thing feel like, well, a GT-edition Porsche. Curiously, the shifter itself does not vibrate in sympathy with the engine.

The GT350’s pedals are a study in performance-car effectiveness. The clutch pedal is light in action—an unexpected boon for commuting in traffic—and the take-up allows for smooth, quick shifting. The brake pedal is firm and progressive, significantly better than the ­Corvette’s. One note about the GT350’s braking performance: Don’t do a day of lapping the day before you go to the proving grounds. That’s a roundabout way of saying that the GT350’s 171-foot braking distance is not representative of what a GT350 can do. An earlier GT350 of the same spec did the deed in 152 feet. So, yeah, we think our track day might have glazed the pads a bit. Oops. There’s no real need for an automated rev-matching system in the GT350, which is good because it doesn’t have one. It’s easy enough to heel-toe, and the free-revving engine is blip-tastic.

There’s no shame in the GT350’s 4.3-second zero-to-60-mph run, or its 12.5-second quarter-mile time. The car is not set up for drag-race launches. Drop the clutch below 4000 rpm and the car will bog a bit as the fat rear tires maintain their death grip on the pavement. Launch it at or above 4000 rpm, while the engine nears its torque peak, and you will roast those tires. That’s why the GT350 is only a tenth of a second quicker than the Mustang GT to 60 mph but half a second quicker through the quarter. This is not an issue on the road or the road course. The increased grip of the R variant’s gumball tires, and the lower rotational inertia of the R’s carbon-fiber wheels [see page 018], puts the Shelby’s acceleration number directly in line with the Corvette’s.

It’s the seamless interaction, that second-nature feel between the GT350’s controls and its excellent body discipline, that makes this car feel so eager, so playful, and so fun. Ultimately, it’s a heavier thing than the Corvette and, while Ford fits aluminum front fenders, aluminum knuckles, and a carbon-fiber radiator support, the GT350 still carries 53 percent of its weight on the front axle, so it tends to understeer during turn-in relative to the Vette on the track. But that’s at the very limit, which you’ll seldom visit on public roads. Otherwise, the GT350 acts as if it were raised on the track, so natural does it feel there. On the road it feels planted and alive. This is the perfect balance.

We wish Ford would allow Track-package GT350 buyers to opt for an upgraded stereo or a nav system that would bring a center screen larger than the playing-card-sized unit in our tester. But if engagement is your primary aim, the GT350 Track package is as engaging a performance car as you’re going to get for less than the cost of a Porsche GT3. It’s that good.